Images of Walmart self-checkout machines asking for tips are AI-generated

Many retailers, particularly grocery stores and supermarkets, utilize self-checkout machines or self-service kiosks. Many of these machines can be pre-programmed to prompt customers with an option to tip, even  when the customer never actually interacts with an employee. 

Recently, some images have been shared on social media that purportedly show Walmart’s self-checkout machines asking for tips. People replying to the images on X, formerly known as Twitter, and on Facebook asked if they were real.

THE QUESTION

Are these real pictures of Walmart self-checkout machines asking for tips?

THE SOURCES

• Author of the original post
• RevEye,a reverse image search tool
• VERIFY analysis of image contents
• Walmart spokesperson
• Mozilla Foundation

THE ANSWER

No, these are not real pictures of Walmart self-checkout machines asking for tips. They are AI-generated images.

WHAT WE FOUND

The images that purportedly show Walmart self-checkout machines asking for tips were generated by artificial intelligence. There are a number of signs within the images that confirm they were generated by AI, and the person who posted them also confirmed they’re AI images that were posted as a joke.

The oldest version of the images VERIFY could find online are a Nov. 8  post on X by the account @AmericaReal3. The person who posted the images replied to multiple people to tell them the post is a joke, and confirmed the images were made with AI.

Several details in both images show signs of AI-generation. For example, most of the words in both images are deformed or gibberish. In one of the photos, the Walmart logo reads “Walmairt” and has an extra lump in the letter M. 

The Mozilla Foundation, which is part of the organization that owns the Firefox web browser, says garbled or gibberish text is common in AI-generated images.

Aside from the text, another indication that the images are AI-generated are the objects in the background. The backgrounds include gibberish signs, a stack of something that looks vaguely like money and several shelf items that are vague and bleed into each other.

Another indication that these are AI-generated images is that both images from the X post were then reposted to Facebook by the page “Weird AI Generations” as part of a set of similarly surreal images of Walmart self-checkouts requesting tips. The page’s self-description box says “AI-generated images.”

Walmart does not ask for or allow tips in its stores, according to a Walmart spokesperson.